Culinary Explosion
by GemNika
Summary: Modern AU. All Lucy wanted was to cook something healthy for a change. Now she's bound to a naked demon who can blow up anything he wants. What... is she supposed to do with this? (Rated M for a reason)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hey everyone, so I posted about this on tumblr and decided to go through with it. For those of you who read my JackaLu week stories, you'll recognize the first half of this chapter from that. In essence, I needed a story for one of my classes this past semester, and fixed up a fanfic of mine (because I'm lazy). Needless to say, it's been revised like crazy and I know exactly where I want to take this… sort of. More like, I can now see all the places this can go.**

 **So, a little bit of information about this. It's all over the place. We'll just call it an AU for time's sake. I've changed a couple of the relationships (familial and so on) because I'm too lazy to change it back from what I revised for class too much, and I think it'll give interesting dynamics to the story. Maybe.**

 **Actually, it's more of a modern AU with hints of magic shit… I don't even know. Just know it's not the canon Fairy Tail universe! We'll see what I change when we get there.**

 **Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy. This has been revised like crazy and I think it's a whole lot better than the JackaLu week one. (Also, I'll be putting a note in that** _ **Stripper**_ **chapter to direct people to this story instead, but I won't delete that chapter from the collection.)**

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Lucy frowned at her faux-marble counter littered with ingredients, double checking to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. It was the first time in quite a while that she'd had the time to put into making a home-cooked meal. Since her younger brother, Natsu, was off doing god-only-knew what, she was dining alone and fully embracing her ability to cook in yoga pants and a sports bra.

And that was fine with her. In fact, it was nice to have a night to herself. She could eat whatever this weird recipe was that she'd gotten from her new cookbook and binge-watch movies. And not think about her miserable existence without that cheating cockstain of an ex-boyfriend, Dan. Or the fact that her twenty-year-old brother had needed to move into her apartment with only one bedroom to help pay the bills now that Dan was gone.

It was a genius plan for a night in.

The cookbook was mostly just garbled words on old worn pages bound in leather, but this… She was sure it was a recipe. It was organized like one, after all.

So, Lucy went about making her dinner. Everything seemed normal enough, and as she poured two whole cups of salt into the bowl she started to wonder what it would taste like. It called for a pound of calf liver, and while she'd only ever had it fried with onions and ketchup on it, she was feeling adventurous.

Besides, Dan had mentioned something about how she'd let herself go as a reason for his wandering dick syndrome, so Lucy decided to prove his smug self wrong. Mostly by eating healthy. Liver was healthy, right? Well, she thought so, at least, and that had to count for something.

It was while she added a pinch of gunpowder - and thanking the gods that Natsu had given her the adorable measuring cup set that actually _had_ a pinch, so she didn't use too much - that Lucy began questioning what she was doing. Surely, gunpowder wasn't a normal ingredient. She wasn't even questioning why she _had_ gunpowder in her cabinet. It was tucked in the back, and she could only assume that Natsu had put it there for some reason. He'd always had a bad habit of collecting odds and ends, and she'd resigned herself years ago to stop questioning the things he had in his nearly-a-meth-lab, kooky chemist trunk sitting just beneath her living room window. How her apartment hadn't blown up from his insanity was beyond her.

The batter in the bowl started to smoke, first a pale silver that shifted into a gunmetal grey. Lucy screamed and ran from the kitchen, upending the bowl as she went and knocking it to the tile floor.

The building rumbled and she was thrown to the floor in her living room as a loud boom echoed through her apartment. Thoughts of the damages she would have to repair before her landlady could skin her alive had Lucy running back to the kitchen, tears in her eyes from the thick smoke billowing through the doorway.

A pair of glowing, golden eyes cut through the smoke. The screeching of the smoke alarm dulled until she could only hear her pounding heart. Her breath halted when she was able to make out a tall, masculine figure slowly making his way toward her. She shivered as a low growl rippled across her body, feeling as though he was pressed right against her even with several feet between them.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he snarled.

"Shit," she muttered.

"Who summoned me?"

"Summoned?" That didn't sound good.

He turned to look at the smoke-filled apartment around him, then back to Lucy and her blonde hair tied up into a sloppy bun. "It was you?"

"Well, uh… Maybe, I guess," she said. "I mean, I was kinda sorta… cooking?"

The smoke cleared as he came forward, standing within only an inch of her. Lucy's eyes widened while she looked up at him, instantly honing in on pointed teeth bared in a terrifying snarl. Not just the canines like the vampires in her favorite, albeit smutty, romance novels, but all of his teeth. His eyes didn't seem to glow now that he was so close. She wondered if the golden hair falling in gentle waves down to his bare, lightly tanned shoulders was naturally that color or a really good dye-job. But he was handsome, she realized, in that vicious, _I'll rip off your skin in strips and make you watch me eat it,_ kind of way.

God, she needed serious mental help if something like being eviscerated was looking attractive to her.

Her foot stuttered over the floor as she tried to back away. Every step she took, he followed, until she was pressed against the wall farthest from her front door and his arms, fading from a pale grey at his elbows to a deadly onyx at his fingers, caged her in. The scrape of long black claws on her blue paisley wallpaper, a high-pitched creak just beside her head, sent her unease climbing even higher.

"Cooking, huh?" he hissed. He drew closer until she could feel his fiery breath feathering over her lips. It smelled kind of like cinnamon. "You sure about that?" Lucy nodded, unsure of what else to do. "Where'd you get my book, woman?"

"A bookstore," she whispered, afraid that if she spoke too loud those sharp teeth would really rip her skin off. "It was, um, in the health food section of some indie-hipster mom and pop place. I thought it was…"

"A cookbook." He raised a brow when she nodded again. "Are you always that fucking stupid?"

Lucy scowled and sent her knee soaring up between his legs, sending a breathy wheeze wisping past his lips. "I'm not stupid, asshole!" she screeched while he crumpled to the ground at her feet. She circled around him, making sure her back faced the door so she would have a clear route of escape. If there was one thing she couldn't abide, it was being called stupid. Natsu was the moron, not her. "I thought it was a recipe!"

It had been nestled between some Crossfit-Paleo All-You-Can-Eat-is-Air book that she was sure had been made from recycled newspaper and hippie spit and a Chocolate Lover's Cookbook. She'd taken one look at the leather binding and felt something deep in her gut churning and coiling while her hand had lifted of what felt like invisible, razored strings around her wrist. Once Lucy had grabbed the book, she couldn't put it down, and had simply thumbed through the pages until she found an actual recipe. She'd dog-eared the page and bought it, and two weeks later, here she was with some random guy pinning her to a wall.

She would have been better off with the hippie spit book.

"Where the hell did you learn to kick like that?" he grumbled, coughing as he sat up and holding an arm around his stomach. Why was he holding his stomach if she'd just kicked him in the crotch?

"Tai-chi," she lied. "I'm not a very relaxed person." That was entirely Dan's fault though. Damnit, she wasn't supposed to be thinking about him.

"Yeah," he said. "My nuts can see that."

"It wasn't enough if you're still talking," she muttered. "Why are you here?" More importantly, why wasn't she leaving? Granted, it was her apartment and he was the intruder, but a smart woman would have jumped at the chance to book it. Except when she looked at his eyes, saw the crinkle of a sneer lifting his lip, she realized there may as well have been boulders in her feet. She couldn't move away, couldn't get another step further. And that was just terrifying.

"You summoned me," he said, slumping against the wall.

"Well-"

"Luce, I didn't know you got a stripper!"

She blinked at the familiar sound of her brother's voice coming from the window off to her right, then slowly turned to see him climbing through the parted drapes. That same infectious grin that he'd had since childhood stretched across his face. Even though he was an adult, every time he smiled it was like she was looking at his eight-year-old self again. "What?"

"You've got a naked guy sitting on the floor," Natsu shrugged.

"Maybe he's a prostitute," Sting snickered as they made their way inside. "Your sister's a total perv, man."

"He's not a hooker!" she shouted, rounding on her brother's annoying best friend. Then she paused and looked back at the nameless man still sitting on the floor against the wall. "You're not, are you?"

"... No," the man said.

"See? Not a hooker. What are you doing here, anyway?"

Natsu made his way out of her kitchen with the leftover takeout from the day before that he'd left in her refrigerator. She still wasn't sure how he managed to move so quickly, but he'd been doing things like that for years. She was sure she'd just been looking at him at the window. "I smelled food," he said around a mouthful of cold chicken and lo mein. "And I live here."

"Meaning he knew that you would be cooking since he wasn't around," Sting sighed, already standing back by the window.

It wasn't her fault that Natsu ate as though there was an army of vikings living in his intestines, and she just didn't have the money to feed that on a regular basis. Besides, he acted like a teenager when it came to eating. He loved takeout food.

"Natsu, we're going to the bar in twenty minutes," Sting said, straddling the windowsill. "Why don't you just eat there?"

"Lucy's food is better."

"Get out, you damn leech!" Lucy shrieked. She wasn't even going to lecture them about using the door like a civilized human being this time. God, she hated when Natsu came through the window. There was a perfectly acceptable _door_ in her apartment, and she knew for a fact that they knew it was there because they'd moved Natsu's things in through that damn thing. But she also knew they did it to get a rise out of her.

Instead, she grabbed Natsu's ear and dragged him back toward the window, pushing him out to the fire escape while his best friend laughed and jumped down the ladder.

"You definitely should've smothered him as a kid," the man still in her apartment said.

When she turned to face him, she realized that he was, in fact, naked. And that she'd pretty much forgotten he was there for a minute. How she'd missed the nudity was beyond her. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she'd been downright positive he was going to eat her when he'd arrived.

While she hardly spared his very bare genitals a second glance, she _was_ drawn to the fact that he had matching golden fur extending from just above his knees down to his… _Those are paws. They're not feet._ Why hadn't Natsu mentioned the furry legs? Hadn't he seen them? She was having a relatively hard time _not_ seeing them, now that she'd noticed the very inhuman appendages.

"Are you gonna stare at me all day, or tell me what you want?"

"Oh!" Lucy turned and grabbed the throw blanket she'd been planning on using while curling up on the couch, then tossed it to him. "Why are you naked?"

She wasn't really sure what he meant by what she _wanted_ , but really, that was a burning question in her mind. And why Natsu and Sting hadn't freaked right the hell out over his furry legs and paws. And how he'd managed to get into her apartment in the first place. But she had priorities, and the reason for dangling man-beast bits getting a cool breeze in her line of sight was most definitely at the top of that list.

"... I was getting out of the shower." Well, his hair did look a little on the damp side.

"What are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I'm a fucking demon!" He stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes as she nodded and came to sit down next to him, all of her previous fear completely nonexistent. "What the hell is wrong with you, lady?"

"Lots of things," she laughed. She had a demon sitting in her living room. Some small part of her was sure this wasn't supposed to be a pleasant experience, that she should be screaming in terror and ripping her hair out while begging him to spare her life.

For some reason, she couldn't find it in her to be scared though. Maybe she'd finally just gone right off the deep end, or maybe she was dreaming. That would explain a lot of the weirdness. Lucy completely ignored the fact that she couldn't remember actually going to sleep though.

"So, what's your name? I can't really call you _Mr. Demon._ "

"Jackal."

She grinned then, extending her hand to him. "Lucy."

He stared at her hand for a moment, then jolted as her light, lilting laugh split the air. She grabbed his clawed hand and placed it in her own, being careful not to let the sharpened tips rip into her flesh. "Do you have any idea what I'm capable of?" he whispered.

"Aside from being naked and making me nearly shit myself? Not a clue." His hand felt nice though. There were no hellish fires lurking beneath his coarse, leathery skin. She couldn't feel millions of devoured souls skittering under his palm. For a demon, he was surprisingly calm. Not that she had much experience with demons in the first place, considering they weren't real. This was definitely a dream.

Jackal grinned, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "You're funny."

"I'm not joking… I was five seconds away from dumping a load in my pants. Good thing you said what you did. I'm all clenched up, now." Lucy's smile widened when she heard a short bark of laughter from the demon whose hand she was still holding. "So, what now?"

He shrugged. "You summoned me. I'm pretty much stuck with you while you've got my book."

"Oh." She really wasn't sure what she could do with a demon. Maybe sending him after her cheating, shit-stain of an ex-boyfriend would be a good start, but Lucy was sure she should at least get to know who this man was first. "Wanna watch a movie?"

The way he stared at her in complete silence was relatively disturbing. He seemed to stop breathing entirely, to stop blinking. It was creepy as hell.

"Can I have some pants first?" he asked.

* * *

Jackal peered around the corner to make sure Lucy was still occupied in her bedroom, rummaging through her brother's clothes. He carefully tip-toed, with a blanket tied around his hips, to the recently cleaned kitchen and grabbed his book from the counter. He couldn't just leave, even though he really wanted to, and he was going to be stuck with her for quite some time because of his idiot dad's rules for book-bound demons.

And it was his job to make sure she understood the rules. Considering he hadn't had anyone actually summon him in nearly a century, Jackal knew he'd need to look through the book to get a refresher for himself. Then again, it wasn't his fault that his summoning usually ended up blowing people up. That was more of a bonus, in his mind.

He brushed the gunpowder off the binding, golden eyes narrowing at the sight of his name printed on the inside cover. Had this Lucy woman looked at it more closely, she would have known his name already. Had she actually taken the time to read anything _in_ the book, like the first page, she would have known it was for summoning a demon.

 _This book will allow the wielder to_ _summon a beast of Tartaros_.

It literally said it. Right there. And even though Jackal wanted to believe she was just a moron, one of the perks of being bound to Lucy meant he could hear what she was thinking. He knew she was intelligent. Mostly. It was just the common sense that she lacked.

He sat back down on her grey corduroy couch and scoffed at the offending fold on his summoning page. Stupid humans and their disrespectful page-folding habits.

"Hey, so Natsu's pants are too small for you to… What are you doing?"

Jackal didn't bother to look at her, and instead stared at the summoning page. Just beneath the needed ingredients were the rest of the instructions. How the caster would need to pour gunpowder in a circle around the offered sacrifice - namely, the calf liver, salt, and garlic - then recite some stupid incantation that praised the demon to be summoned and asked for assistance.

"Tell me something," he said, frowning at the page. "What did you do when you summoned me?"

"I put the gunpowder in and ran when it started smoking."

His frown deepened. That shouldn't have happened. The incantation was crucial. Humans couldn't just summon a demon like himself without it. Jackal's gaze drifted toward Lucy to find her wearing a tank top, most likely to cover herself up a little more, and staring at him. She didn't look like anything other than a human though. He couldn't feel any magic coming from her, so she wasn't a fairy in hiding.

"Why?" she asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," he said. "Just different." Had she said she put the gunpowder _in_ the mixture? That was definitely different. Garlic was supposed to go in it and gunpowder went around it. Maybe that's why she'd lived. Because she couldn't read instructions.

"Lemme guess. I botched it and you're not supposed to have furry legs."

"No," he laughed. "No, my legs are supposed to be like this. It's not important." That was a lie though. This was really, really important. So painfully important that he was already dreading having to go talk to his father and ask how the hell she'd managed to summon him without an incantation or anything else. All because she couldn't read the damn instructions!

Because, contrary to popular belief in the underworld, Mard Geer - who the humans tended to call Satan - really was a dick. At least, he was to Jackal. Probably because he was the youngest of nine kids, and his general lack of circulation in the human realm with his book meant that he didn't bring in enough souls. Or because Mard Geer really only wanted eight kids, and Jackal was - as he'd been told, repeatedly, by the crusty bastard - an accident.

"Anyway," Jackal said, clearing his throat, "I have to show you how to use my book."

"Why?"

"Because you summoned me and I'm bound to you," he said. Jackal felt like he'd been saying that a lot lately. "Which means, until you're dead or you give up ownership of my book, you're stuck with me."

"That's kinda creepy."

Jackal shrugged. It wasn't his place to decide whether it was creepy or not. This was just how it went. "There's rules for what you can and can't do, or order me to do."

"Okay, like what?" He could hear that she was still operating under the assumption that she was dreaming. He already knew it was going to be hell trying to get her to believe this was real. Jackal flipped through a few pages and settled the book in his lap so she could see it as well, then pointed a clawed finger to the text.

"Some of the basics," he said. "You're the only one who can see me as a demon. Everyone else just sees a human. If I'm in a digital picture, I'll look human to even you. Regular pictures, like Polaroids, and anyone can see I'm a demon." He was more than thankful that no one took real pictures anymore. His brothers had gotten into so much trouble for being seen in pictures, and he'd heard time and again about the advancements in human technology that made their lives a whole lot easier.

"That explains Natsu thinking you were a stripper," she muttered.

"You can order me to kill pretty much anyone, including other demons, and especially those stupid asshole fairies."

"Fairies exist?" Lucy asked.

"Yes," he spat. "And no, they don't have wings. Not anymore. They traded them to get a growth spurt." And be human-sized instead of barely breaking three feet tall. "They're everywhere in populated cities."

"Guess it's good I live in Rhode Island, then," she said. His brow furrowed while he looked at her. "No big cities here. And from what I can tell, demons hate fairies. Or, you do. Them not being around will make my life easier."

Jackal nodded and looked back at the book. She was definitely picking it up, he had to hand it to her. And because she was just going along with things, this whole explanation was going to be easy. The last time he'd needed to do this, the man had been so hysterical he wouldn't stop screaming long enough for Jackal to get it all out. Thankfully, that guy took a musket to the face from his wife when she thought he'd gone insane, and Jackal had been able to slip away. He still hated the 19th century because of that.

"I have to protect you," he continued. "But only from dying. Unless you order me to help you otherwise, I most likely won't. So if you're getting mugged or raped or chased down some dark alley by a pack of vicious, rabies-infested hellhounds… I'll just watch until you say something. Or if your mugger, rapist, or the hellhounds are on the verge of killing you, then I'll step in."

"Dick."

He grinned and glanced at her. "I never said demons were the good guys."

"Aren't you supposed to _want_ me dead?" Lucy asked. "I mean so you can eat my soul or something like that?"

"I guess so, but my dad's an asshole who likes to contradict himself."

"I swear to god, if you say you're the son of the devil…"

"I am."

Lucy sighed, the sound heavy as it drifted in the air. "Of course you are."

She still didn't believe him. Jackal knew she would soon. All he could hope was that she wouldn't go completely insane when she realized that this was her reality. "Anyway, you can see other demons as long as I'm bound to you. And humans that have demons bound to them can see that I'm a demon. If you start freaking out over seeing them, they'll realize you can see their demonic form, and most likely try to kill you."

"This really isn't reassuring, you know?"

"You're the one who summoned me," Jackal said. "If you don't like it, just give me back my book and I'll be on my way."

"But you already have your book," she said.

He lifted the book and looked her in the eye. "It still belongs to you. I can't steal it from you and just break the contract. You have to be _willing_ to part with it. It's a whole verbal thing. Unless you're interested in that right now, don't worry about the specifics."

He listened intently as her mind whirred and she mulled over what he was telling her. There was a lot they would need to get through for her to really understand just what he was capable of, and the things she could do with him by her side. If she was smart about it, Lucy could turn things around and have the whole world under her control. Okay, that was a bit ambitious. Maybe just Rhode Island.

He waited though. Jackal wanted her to work it out for herself, to decide whether she really wanted to be bound to a demon. Hell, if she gave up the book right then, he couldn't do a thing about it. He wasn't going to tell her that he couldn't take her soul with him if she relinquished the book right away, because she hadn't sinned using his book yet. All she'd done was summon him, and if Lucy let it go, she wouldn't have to face any of the consequences of having a demon around.

Jackal really didn't want that. He wanted her soul. The pure white light sitting deep in her chest would be delicious to devour. And the longer she held onto his book, the better it would taste once he took it.

"What about… Well, what can you even do?" she finally asked. That was apparently a determining factor for her. What was he capable of and how could she even use his power? That was easy.

"There are two types of demons," Jackal said. "Ones that specialize in certain jobs and ones that have a specific talent. I'm the second kind." He wasn't going to tell her that it was usually only the literal spawns of Satan that had specialties, or that they were the only ones with books to be used for summoning. "All I have to do is touch something and mark it with a curse. After that, I can make it explode."

"... Is that why I needed gunpowder?"

"Maybe." Of course that was why she needed gunpowder. "I'd offer to show you, but I'm pretty sure you don't-"

"You're not blowing up my apartment!"

Jackal scowled and closed the book, then smacked her on the top of the head with it. Just like his father had done to him countless times over the last few hundred years. Luckily, what he'd done was a tap in comparison to the skull-splintering wallops Mard Geer gave him with a bible. The hypocritical ass.

' _God, he's so immature! Who hits someone with a book?!'_

With a heavy sigh, he opened the book again. He ignored her heavy glare while finding his place in the text once more. "Anyway, I can blow up pretty much anything."

"You're not gonna act like my butler or something, are you?"

Jackal snorted. "No. And once you give me the go-ahead and we finalize the contract, I'm out of here until you call for me." He paused, watching her head tilt with curiosity. "Just because I'm bound to you doesn't mean I have to _live_ here. You call when you need me. Unless you order me to stay here with you, I'm heading home."

"But you said you couldn't leave until…"

"No, I said I was stuck with you," Jackal said. "Big difference." The sudden flash across her mind of some guy named Dan made him want to shudder. Great. Just what he needed. Some scorned woman who was still hung up on a guy, crying to him about how unfair life was. Then again, women like her tended to be a bit vindictive. And if he could convince her… "You know, I could kill him for you."

"What?" Lucy asked, shifting back in her seat.

"Dan." He paused while her mind quickly supplied the background information he needed. "Cheated on you, broke your heart, blah blah blah. I could kill him. You just tell me when and how you want it done. There's no way it'll get traced back to you, either."

"I don't want him dead!"

Jackal simply shrugged and looked back at his book. "Suit yourself."

He had to fight not to smile though, because even though Lucy said she didn't want Dan dead, she was thinking about it in pretty vivid detail. In his experience, humans tended to give in to those darker desires if they could get away with it. She hadn't a clue what he could really do, but if she decided to keep his book, she would find out soon enough.

No matter how much good there was in her, Lucy would use him to commit a sin. And as soon as she did, her soul was his for the taking.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So, it's been a bit… Yeah, I got nothing. Hopefully you'll enjoy the new chapter enough not to kill me for the long wait? Maybe? … No? Alright, I guess I deserve that.**

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Lucy really couldn't help herself while sitting on the couch and glaring at the demon she'd accidentally summoned. The thought of Dan's miserable life being snuffed out was kind of appealing. Except it was still murder, and murder was so, so wrong, and she wasn't a murderer. Even if she did have a bit of an obsession with horror and serial killers, she wasn't a psychopath who would murder her stupid ex-boyfriend for falling dick-first into some skank's crusty, possibly herpes-infested snatch.

She kind of hoped he got crabs, to be completely honest. Or chlamydia. Ooh, that would just be perfect. It would serve him right, that cheating shit-wich.

Jackal snorted beside her, drawing her attention back to the present. He sure looked like something was funny. But she hadn't said anything, and it was completely silent in her apartment otherwise. Unless he'd thought of something funny? Maybe he was teasing her in his head over how she'd summoned him.

"If you're finished," he drawled, leaning back on the couch and putting an arm behind his head. He pointed to another section of the text, and she forced herself to look at the words instead of how he looked all stretched out like some sinewy, delicious morsel of immortality. "It's up to you to read this. Memorize it if you want."

"Do you have it memorized?"

"I should. It's my book, after all." She wasn't sure if that meant he did, in fact, know it all from cover to cover, or… maybe he was saying that he was supposed to?

"What else should I know?" she asked, frowning as he flipped another few pages. "You can blow stuff up when you touch it, you'll only save me if I'm gonna die or if I make you do it. No one can see that you're a demon but me, unless you're in a Polaroid or they're connected with a demon themselves…"

"As far as the basics are concerned, that's really it," he said. Still, he pointed to another section titled _Contractual Obligations_. Lucy scanned the page, listening as he spoke. "This part is what you'll have to read before I can leave today. If you agree to keep my book, I'll show you how to sign it."

"Do I have to sign in blood?" she asked with a grimace. He was silent, and she finally turned to look into his bright golden eyes, only to find him looking back at her with an equal level of disgust. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he spat. "Why would I want your fucking _blood_ on my book?!"

"I don't know!" she shouted. "Because you're a demon?"

"Racist."

Her lips parted to yell back at him that she was _not_ a racist, and neither was what she said. Except then she realized he was smirking at her once again, showing off all those dangerously pointed teeth. He was messing with her. Damn it all to hell, he was _teasing_ her! "Oh, go to hell," she muttered.

"I will, just as soon as you read this and sign it the _right_ way by keeping your damn fluids off my book."

With a roll of her eyes, Lucy set her attention on the book once more. She didn't try to take it from his lap - hell no, she was not getting in his personal bubble with any part of her body - and instead craned her neck to read it. Of course, she didn't understand most of what was written on the page. Lucy was no lawyer, and it was mostly that ridiculous legalese bullshit. It was like trying to read through the Terms and Conditions while downloading a video game. She wasn't really sure if she wanted to have a demon bound to her at all, but at the same time… What was the harm in it, really?

"Question," she sighed once she'd gotten halfway down the page.

"Answer."

Lucy sent him a half-glare. "Are you going to take my soul?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"When I decide that I want it."

"That doesn't really seem fair," she said, leaning away from the book again. "You can just _decide_ that you're done with me, and you get to take my soul? Just like that?"

"There's more to it than that," he chuckled. Without looking, he pointed to a paragraph in the middle of all the jumbled text she could hardly understand. "By signing this contract with me, you're agreeing to surrender your soul to me at a time of my choosing; however, my decision to take your soul is based on when it's as ripe as can be."

"... Ripe?"

"I'm going to eat it," he said, and she found herself shuddering when he eyed the center of her chest as though he was considering doing it right then. "When your soul is at it's finest, when it'll taste the best, that's when I'll take it."

That really didn't sound like something she wanted in the slightest. She wanted to live a long, happy life. But if Jackal here was just going to take her soul when he decided it was time, maybe she wouldn't get a whole lot of anything out of her life. Maybe it would be a week before he finally killed her.

"If it makes you feel any better, I can't take it until you've had my book for at least a year."

"So, I'll have a year before you murder me."

"What have you got to lose, really?" he asked, raising his brow at her. "With me by your side, you can do anything you want. Without me, you're what? A waitress at some shithole bar-"

"Restaurant," she corrected.

"- Living with her brother. You can't keep a man-"

"Because he's a cheating asshole!"

"- satisfied, and it took you _how long_ to get up the courage to talk to him in the first place?"

"Two months," she admitted, lowering her head.

"Not to mention your parents are dead, and you don't have many friends to begin with." Jackal sat forward and wrapped his clawed fingers around her chin, forcing her to look at him again. Forcing her to see the wicked grin that curled his lips when he saw that he'd gotten under her skin. "So what's so bad about me taking your soul?"

"It's my soul," she whispered. "It's what makes me who I am."

"I'm fully aware of that," he said. "That's why it tastes so good."

He shifted closer to her, setting his book on the coffee table. Heat suffused her body, almost as though he was really touching her from head to toe. Except he wasn't. The only time their skin had come into contact was when she'd shaken his hand, and right then with his hand holding her chin. A soft blush crept along her cheeks as his warm breaths feathered over her lips.

"Question," she whispered.

"Answer," he replied, smirking at her breathlessness.

"You said you're already bound to me. Why would I have to sign something to finalize it?"

"Think of it like acknowledging receipt," he said, but he didn't move away. Honestly, she was torn between pushing him away from her and just pissing her pants right then. When he was so close, he was intimidating. Domineering. She could feel his presence wriggling through her pores and piercing her soul.

And just like the day she'd found his book in the store, Lucy was compelled to move by something invisible. It sliced through her wrist and drew her hand up, but she couldn't look away from Jackal's eyes to see if she was really bleeding. It wasn't until she was gently pushing his bangs away from his face that she knew for a fact nothing had hurt her, and nothing was touching her.

His eyes narrowed and his nose twitched where it sat mere millimeters in front of her own. "What are you…"

All she could hear was her staccatoed breath, the blood rushing between her ears. And somehow, some way, she knew that the low hum drifting beneath it all was coming from the demon in front of her. It wasn't his voice though. It was something else, entirely. Something dark, yet enticing as it pulled at the very depths of her being.

Jackal froze, pulling in another deep breath, and then grabbed her wrist hard enough to leave a bruise, wrenching it away from his face with a vicious snarl. His hand warmed in an instant and she was only vaguely aware of his blackened flesh shifting to a bright orange.

"Say what I tell you to," he growled, "And only what I tell you."

She didn't nod. She couldn't.

If Lucy was being honest with herself, whatever was happening was actually starting to scare her just a little bit. She didn't like this. She didn't like not knowing why he was moving until she felt both of his hands gripping hers tightly. She didn't like not being able to look away from his eyes, or this sinking feeling in her chest that reminded her of the time she'd nearly drowned in her old friend's pool when she was only six.

"With my soul, I vow this," he said quickly.

"With my… soul… I…" Her vision wavered slightly, and the warmth from his hands increased to the point of burning her. She gasped at the pain, but it brought his face back into focus. "I vow this."

"I surrender to Jackal of Tartaros," he continued.

The pain in her wrist increased, and Lucy wondered if there really was some sort of string wrapped around it, pulling taut and cutting into her. "I-I surrender to Jackal of Tartaros." She was saying the words he told her to, but they just weren't registering at all.

"My soul is yours to take," he said.

"My soul is yours to take."

"And in this binding, an eternal contract is made."

"And in this binding, an eternal contract is made." Fire crawled up the length of her arms, through her veins and toward the center of her chest. It burned. It burned so badly she wanted to shriek and collapse from the pain, but he held her in place with his strong clawed hands and his heavy glare.

"I cast aside my purity," he growled, and his grip tightened until all five claws on each hand pierced her flesh, drawing ten little dots of blood that seeped down to her wrists.

"I-I cast aside my purity…"

"For I am now a servant of Mard Geer."

The name alone had her body shuddering and flinching from him. It wasn't her trying to pull away though. She didn't know that name, but some part of her recoiled from it. He never looked away from her wide eyes, so she could only assume that there wasn't anyone else in the room with them. Still, it felt as though strong hands were digging into her shoulders and trying with all their might to drag her away.

"For I am now a…" She gasped at the feeling of his claws digging further into her hands, how Jackal pulled her closer to him. Was he trying to take her away from something? Was there really someone there with them? "A servant of Mard Geer."

She didn't have a chance to do much more than blink before he let go of her hands and wrapped his arms around her. There was a loud screech in the air, followed by what she could only describe as red hot talons swiping at her back and splitting her shirt and flesh open in one fluid movement.

Jackal pulled her off the couch with him just as her agonized cry left her throat a raw, ragged mess. Where her floor should have been was an empty abyss, and she fell through it with nothing more than a demon's arms wrapped around her. She caught the barest glimpse of a ghostly pale, harrowed man snarling down from her apartment above them, reaching into the hole that burned his hand away into bits of ash.

* * *

The last thing Jackal had wanted was to do this, but he really hadn't had a choice in the matter. It was either allow her to be consumed by some _Vor_ , or take her and his book along with him back to the Underworld. And considering a Vor consuming a human soul as pure as hers would give it enough power to break free of its eternal suffering in limbo, he wasn't going to allow that to happen.

He'd never hear the end of it from his father if he lost her soul so quickly after she'd summoned him. Especially not to some mindless peon like a Vor.

Her thoughts shot off rapid-fire, which was honestly a surprise, considering he knew she'd been nearly sliced to ribbons by that stupid thing. And she was fully aware of it - the searing pain in her back was nearly all she could think about, after all - but she wasn't screaming. No, instead he was stuck with a blonde woman crying in his arms, against his bare chest, holding onto him for dear life because she knew, instinctively, that she was a whole lot safer with him than in her own apartment where that fucking monster was.

Of course, if he'd been paying a little more attention to the tunnel they were hurtling down, to the doors they passed along the way, then he would have slowed them down and taken her to his own room. But no, he was too preoccupied with her crying all over him, holding onto both her and his book, and the fact that she was screaming obscenities in her head far louder than he'd ever heard from a human before. At least she was inventive. He'd never heard the phrase _I'd rather be raped with a minotaur_ before. That was a little humorous, and just a bit on the graphic side. He couldn't help but picture a seven-foot bull-man trying to squeeze himself between her legs, face and shoulders first. The horns alone would be quite the feat.

So, it was all of these things combined that caused Jackal to completely miss his own room without realizing it. And they just kept falling and falling until they reached the bottom. Except, once his feet touched the cool stone sigil that made up the entirety of the floor, he finally came back to reality and found a most unwelcome sight before him.

"Jackal, what a surprise," Mard Geer hummed, setting down his glass of wine on the arm of his throne made of bones and sinew.

Shit. Double, no triple shit. "U-Uh… Hey…?" he sputtered. He hated talking to his father. Actually, he hated his father in general, and it was partially because their "talks" usually consisted of intense glaring and scathing remarks from the king of the Underworld, and Jackal biting his tongue until it bled.

Mard Geer raised a single, thin brow. It was only then that Jackal realized he was in his human form, instead of the grey-skinned monstrosity he really was.

Lucy's head lifted slowly, and Jackal could feel her whole body trembling in his grasp. He looked from his father's unimpressed gaze down to her, then back. Quadruple shit. He wasn't supposed to bring humans down here. Had it been his room, he could have gotten away with it, but she wasn't dead and she wasn't just a soul, and she was bleeding all over his father's fucking floor, right in front of him, and he was watching it happen.

Was quintuple shit a thing? Jackal was running out of shits.

The fact that Mard Geer still said nothing, and instead just had that stupid fucking smirk on his face while his head tilted to rest on his open palm, really didn't bode well for Jackal. Not at all. He wanted an explanation, and he wanted it _now_.

"She summoned me," he explained quickly, and honestly? Jackal didn't give a shit that his ears lowered against his head, or that he heard his brothers walking into the throne room. "And before we could have her finalize it, a Vor came out and tried to make her kill me! So, she did the thing, and then it tried to kill her! I-I swear, I didn't mean to bring her all the way down here. I didn't!"

"And yet, here she is," Mard Geer sighed. "A human…" His crimson eyes narrowed only slightly at the long slashes running down her back. "A resilient one, though."

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?" came a gruff voice off to Jackal's left.

"Shut up, Gajeel," he snarled, turning his attention to his brother. He had the same crimson eyes as their father, but his hair was much more unruly. The entirety of his body was covered in iron scales. That had to mean he'd just come back from the mines where there had been an uprising of some sort.

"You really brought a human down here? Jesus fucking Christ, Jackal." His head turned the other way to find another of his older brothers, the seventh son, glaring at Lucy with disdain pouring from his single indigo eye.

"Ooh, Cobra said a bad word," cackled Bickslow, the third son of Mard Geer... and Cobra's lover. Jackal was still very weirded out by those two getting their freak on, considering they were brothers. _Half brothers,_ they liked to correct him, _and separated by several centuries in age_ , but still related enough for it to be fucking gross. Then again, they were in Hell already. No, no, he wasn't going to start making excuses for that level of depravity.

He set his attention back to his father. "I'll take her to my room and clean her up," Jackal said. "And I'll go make sure the Vor's sent back to limbo as soon as I'm done."

"Just eat her fuckin' soul already," Gajeel snorted.

"He can't," Cobra chuckled. "He's on _restriction_ , remember?"

Lucy's hazy eyes slid open and locked onto Jackal's scowling face. She whimpered when his claws dug into her bleeding wounds where he held her. Her knees buckled, but he caught her just in time before she could smear more of her blood on the floor. "R-Restriction?" she muttered, mostly to herself.

Jackal really hadn't planned on telling her about that. Or anything about himself, really. She only needed to call him when she wanted something, after all, so he'd planned on just staying the hell away from her until he was needed.

Except his father had that damn look in his eyes again, and that never ended well for Jackal.

"Ah, yes, I did put you on restriction, didn't I?"

"You did," Jackal muttered.

"What was it again?"

"He has to keep a contract for a year before he gets the soul," Bickslow shouted, grinning from ear to ear with only his lips visible beneath the black skull visor he wore. Creepy ass motherfucker. Jackal really didn't care if it was his job to collect souls when he wasn't under a contract. He'd always been a fucking creeper.

"And even then, he doesn't get to take it right away," Cobra said. His gaze travelled over Lucy's body where she hung limp in Jackal's arms. "Maybe if you hadn't had that fucking tantrum and destroyed a whole wing of the Underworld…"

"Fuck you, Cobra," Jackal bellowed. "You started it!"

Mard Geer cleared his throat, causing all of his sons to fall silent. Slowly, he stood from his throne, and Jackal went stone still. His father never walked away from his throne while someone could see him. He was sure the only time the guy left it was when he was off getting a piece of succubus ass. But he was moving right then, and he was looking at Lucy. Finally, Mard Geer stopped in front of them. He used only one finger to push Lucy's bloodied blonde hair off to the side, and inspected the long slashes running from her left shoulder down to her right hip. The same finger dug into one of the wounds, ripping a crackling scream from her, and he pulled back to taste her blood. The sudden flash of intrigue in his eyes really set Jackal on edge.

"How is she still alive?" Mard Geer whispered to himself. He lifted her right wrist, turning the bruised appendage in his hand, then grinned.

"Wh-What is it?" Jackal asked, hunching his shoulders just a little when his father turned to him again.

"Someone has severed her strings, Jackal."

His golden eyes widened, and he looked from Lucy - whose head lolled back while she tried to regain her composure and combat the excruciating pain Mard Geer had put her through - then to her wrist, still held in his father's grasp. "The Vor was pulling them," he said. "I-I had to-"

"Not you," Mard Geer sighed, but there was still that conniving grin curling his lips. "Someone else… They replaced her strings, Jackal. This looks like a fairy's handiwork."

Jackal nearly dropped her right then from the shock. A fairy had come along and severed the strings that bound her to the mortal realm, then replaced them? For what purpose? Why in the hell would someone do that?

"It seems, they've been experimenting again."

"Wh-What?" Experimenting? What did that even mean? Fairies didn't do experiments. That was more Lamy's thing, and she was a fucking demon. And an annoying one, at that.

"It seems they've picked up where they left off with that prophet," Mard Geer sighed. "They wanted to make her a martyr."

Silence reigned in the throne room after that, with only Lucy's ragged breathing and muted whimpers echoing in the air. Even his brothers were quiet. Because they all knew what this meant, especially as their father's fingers passed through Lucy's wrist - first one, then the other, then down to her ankles - and pulled out a glittering, silver string that crumbled in his palm.

The strings of humans were supposed to be red, only visible to demons when the human in question was on their deathbed. But silver? That was unheard of. Well, it was to Jackal. Then again, he was the youngest of the nine hellspawn. He'd yet to get through all of the world's history while reading in his spare time.

"Gajeel, summon Lamy," Mard Geer said. He ignored his eighth son, who nodded and rushed out of the throne room, instead choosing to tip Lucy's head back to look at her face.

"I-I can do it, father," Jackal said quietly.

"Lamy can do it faster." He paused, looking into Jackal's eyes. "Cobra, Bickslow, leave us. I need to discuss something with him."

Jackal didn't move a muscle under his father's narrow, penetrating gaze while his brothers left. Once the door closed behind them, Mard Geer ripped open the front of Lucy's shirt and pointed to the symbol that had been burned into her chest.

"You realize what this is," he said.

Jackal nodded. "It's a protection seal," he whispered back. "I can take her soul, but I… I can't…"

Mard's eyes narrowed even further. "You really are a disappointment," he sighed, watching as his son's head lowered and his ears flattened against his head once again. "You can do it yourself, in your room."

Jackal's head shot up in shock, his eyes wide and surprised. "But I thought you said Lamy…"

"She can clean up the blood instead." Mard Geer waved his hand and walked back toward his throne, then took a seat and sipped at his wine. "Get this human out of my sight."

With a quick nod, Jackal gathered Lucy into his arms with one around her back and the other around her knees, then turned to leave.

"And Jackal?" He paused when he heard his father's voice. "I don't ever want to see you wearing a blanket as a skirt again." With his face suddenly flaming, Jackal stormed out of the throne room, leaving a grinning Mard Geer of Tartaros behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: The turnout for last chapter was utterly amazing! Thank you all so much for the great reviews! I love seeing my readers asking the questions they have by the end of a chapter, especially on this story since I'm just winging it as I go along until I figure out where I wanna take it. So, who knows? Your questions will either end up being answered one way or another in the course of the story, or they could even give me a solid direction to go!**

 **I was planning on holding onto this one for a while, since I ended up writing it right after I finished the last chapter. But I can't! I hope you enjoy!**

 **But, enough about all that! I'm sure you'd like to get to the story!**

* * *

The first thing Lucy came to realize about Jackal's room was that it smelled like cinnamon. She vaguely recalled that his breath also smelled like cinnamon when they'd met and he'd gotten in her personal space. But she really wasn't sure why something like the smell stuck out to her so much when she could hardly think past the excruciating pain ricocheting down her spine. It was so intense it reached to her toes, like a reversed orgasm that gave her pain instead of pleasure.

Somewhere in her mind, she figured it was more accurate, since she was in Hell. Literal Hell. There was no ascending to the fucking heavens for her this time. Nope, it was straight into the Underworld with a demon whose father decided it would be a good idea to shove his fingers in her back. The open wounds in her back that she was absolutely positive should have killed her.

"Things like that won't kill you," Jackal said, taking long strides across his room and dropping her on the bed. He was covered in her blood from the short trip (for him) back up to his room from his father's throne room. "Well, not now, at least."

She wasn't listening to him, though. Lucy really couldn't find the will to do much more than breathe and try not to bite off her tongue. Had he really needed to jostle her like she was nothing more than a bag of dirty laundry? Did laundry in Hell ever actually get dirty? And with him being some semblance of a prince, she supposed considering he was a son of the devil, did he even have to wash his own laundry if he actually did sully it?

Were there maids in Hell?

Oh god, what if he didn't ever wear clothes at all? What if everyone in Hell was naked constantly?

"Oh shut up with that already," Jackal growled. The very distinct sound of ripping fabric drew her attention more than his voice did. Well, that and the fact that several strips of her shredded shirt slid over the wounds on her back, and she was absolutely positive that she was going to upchuck.

He crammed the wadded up, bloody shirt in her mouth when her lips parted for her to scream. And suddenly, her eyes were open again - when had she closed them in the first place? - and his face was right in front of her with his cheek pressed against the bed she was lying on.

"This is gonna hurt like hell," he said. "So scream all you want and bite that shirt, but try not to move."

Lucy sniffled and nodded as best as she could. For the first time since meeting him just a short while earlier, he actually sounded like he cared. His voice that had kept an undertone of soft growls every time he'd spoken was more whisper than anything else.

He gently lifted her hands above her head, wrapping his hands around hers and forcing her to grip the thick comforter. She got the picture though. He was giving her multiple ways to deal with the pain. And biting the shirt right then was actually helping her just a little bit. He straddled her back and she was able to feel the fur on his legs brushing against her sides.

"Don't mind the smell," he said. She wasn't sure what the hell that was supposed to mean, but Lucy didn't have time to question it, or him, before he pressed scorching hot hands to the torn flesh in the center of her back.

She screamed. Her jaw clenched of its own accord around the shirt. She nearly tore through the comforter while gripping and twisting it in her grasp. Lucy tried everything she could think of to make the pain go away, and even when her body flinched away from his hands, Jackal just pressed down harder.

"Don't move!" he bellowed.

She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself with moose antlers wrapped in barbed wire, but breathing enough to scream in agony was already a chore. She thought, as the pain finally began to dull and her tears broke free, that would be the end of it. And then his hands shifted, with one moving closer to her left shoulder and the other sliding down toward her right hip.

Her screams took on a whole new level of horrifying as time ticked onward. She was dubbing herself the new Scream Queen. Jamie Lee Curtis could move on over.

The pain never stopped. Eventually, she couldn't tell what he was or wasn't touching any longer. She didn't know what he thought he was doing, either, because all Lucy was sure of in that moment was that he was trying to kill her. He'd lied about the contract, and had decided to torture her before devouring her soul.

Her last thought before the pain became too much to bear was that maybe she should have taken him up on the offer to mess with Dan. Not kill him, no, but screw him over in a major way…

 _'Like blowing up his house… that'd teach him…'_

* * *

Jackal sat back and frowned at the long scars running down Lucy's back. He'd done his best controlling his curse to burn her flesh closed. Only where she was hurt. He didn't want her entire back to be covered in gnarled, disfiguring scars, after all. She'd passed out from the pain only moments before he'd finished up. The fact that she'd been able to stay awake that long at all was a bit of a surprise, but he just chalked it up to the seal he'd put on her.

That seal.

His father hadn't pointed it out to his brothers at the time, which was a small saving grace for Jackal, but he knew just how much Mard Geer loathed these seals. Just because they had the ability to do something like this didn't mean they were really _supposed_ to do it.

A snarl curled his lip when he thought about how he must have looked in front of his brothers. For centuries, Jackal had been openly hostile toward his father - finding out that he was a mistake from the man himself put quite the damper on his willingness to fall in line. But that day, his tail had tucked between his legs, and he'd cowered like some little pup. In front of his damn brothers. They'd never let him live this one down. It was disgusting. He didn't fall all over himself trying to please his father like the other demons. He'd done everything in his power for the majority of his existence to thwart that bastard at every turn.

Blowing up sections of the Underworld was just one of his favorite pastimes. And considering he hadn't been summoned in so long, there really wasn't anything else for him to do. He'd yet to be given an actual job to do when not under a contract. Bickslow collected souls and brought them to limbo to be judged. Gajeel was the lead enforcer of one branch of Mard Geer's demon army, and he kept uprisings to a minimum. Each of his eight older brothers had something to fill the time between summonings.

Hell, Cobra was the one who oversaw their health department. The fact that they even _had_ a health department was weird, but considering Lamy worked under Cobra and experimented on souls and demons alike… Maybe it wasn't too far of a stretch.

A sharp knock at his door drew Jackal's attention, and it opened a moment later to reveal Cobra. Alone, thankfully. He didn't invite his brother in, but the asshole still moved as though he owned the place. He stopped beside Jackal's bed, his single indigo eye with its reptilian slitted pupil glaring down at Lucy's now scarred back.

"Pretty good," Cobra said.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on this human for you. Make sure you didn't fuck it up." Jackal growled and bared his teeth while jumping to his feet on the bed. Cobra barely acknowledged him with a roll of his eye. "You said it was a Vor that attacked her, right?"

Jackal didn't nod, but he knew that calculating look in his brother's eye. It was something Cobra had definitely inherited from their father.

"They don't usually attack humans when they manage to break out of limbo," he said. Cobra reached out and gently brushed his clawed, red-scaled finger along one scar on Lucy's back. "Their touch is deadly for humans, though. She should have died."

"Well, she didn't," Jackal spat. "I made a contract with her, so I had to protect her."

He really didn't like the fact that Cobra started smirking, or that he looked to be on the verge of laughing.

"You could have gotten through a loophole in your restriction if you'd let her die," he chuckled. "Once the contract is made, if your human dies, you get their soul."

"I was explaining it to her when that thing showed up and tried to pull on her strings so she'd kill me."

"You're saying a Vor was manipulating her?" Cobra asked, suddenly frowning. "That's not possible. They can't touch-"

"I know that, asshole." Jackal sighed and reached down, lifting Lucy into his arms. He completely ignored her bare breasts in favor of hopping off the bed and carrying her to the bathroom. They were both covered in her blood, and the last thing he wanted was to keep smelling it. "Is there some other reason you're here?" he called out over his shoulder.

Cobra followed him to the bathroom, watching with keen interest as Jackal stepped into the shower with Lucy. He came closer and it was only once the water was running at a slightly cooler temperature than Jackal normally liked it - human's couldn't take their water too hot, he knew - that he realized just what his brother was staring at. Her chest. The seal.

"Jackal, you didn't…"

"I did," he snapped. "And so fucking what if I did? I didn't get beheaded for it or anything like Tempester."

Tempester, the fourth son of Mard Geer, had stupidly fallen for some human girl and tried to give her a protection seal. Mard Geer had tortured her in front of him and then beheaded Tempester, only to have Lamy bring him back to life with his memory wiped clean. He no longer remembered the girl he'd loved, or being killed, or anything else. Jackal hadn't considered Tempester's fate when he'd put the seal on Lucy. He hadn't really thought about it until he'd been face-to-face with Mard Geer.

"Why the hell did you do this?" Cobra asked, suddenly wide-eyed. "Do you honestly have any idea what you got yourself into?"

"Yes!" Jackal roared, flinging water in every direction when a few droplets got in his ear and he violently shook his head. "Cobra, I know you all think I'm a fucking moron, but I'm not! I know exactly what I did when I changed the binding incantation for her, okay?"

"You… what did you say?"

Jackal closed his eyes and ground his teeth together. He hadn't meant to say that. Damnit, he'd planned on keeping that to himself! "I said I changed the binding incantation," he whispered, looking down at the two crossed hammers tattooed on her chest. "She'd summoned me, and while I was explaining shit to her, that thing showed up. I could feel it there."

"Why didn't you just kill it instead of… doing this?" Cobra asked. He crouched down beside the shower and watched curiously as Jackal started carefully scrubbing the blood off the blonde human woman.

"I couldn't move," he said. "She was touching my face, looking into my eyes. I couldn't _move_."

"She touched you." Jackal simply nodded. "Willingly touched you." He nodded again, even though he was sure that Lucy hadn't meant to touch him that time. But she'd touched his hands before that with no issues. "Jackal…"

"Shut it," he spat, not looking at his older brother as his ears lowered in embarrassment. He missed the way Cobra's eye softened just a little as he turned Lucy over and scrubbed more vigorously at the blood on her lower back. "Just because no one's ever touched me before doesn't mean a fucking thing, Cobra."

"I'd say it means a whole lot."

It didn't though. Jackal had been raised much the same as his brothers. Mard Geer wasn't one for affection, so spawn-rearing (as the King of the Underworld so _lovingly_ dubbed it) was left to the mothers until the young demons were of an age where they could be put to work. Except Jackal's mother died just after his birth.

Well, more accurately, she'd hidden the pregnancy from Mard Geer until Jackal had been born, and the bastard had utterly obliterated her for keeping it from him. He couldn't very well have killed Jackal as well, considering he _was_ an heir. Ninth in line, but still an heir. So, Jackal had been left to his own devices once he'd passed the nursing stage, and all he'd known was who his father and brothers were, and that they all hated him.

"The fact that you brought it up at all says otherwise," Cobra said, and Jackal growled under his breath and kept scrubbing the blood from Lucy's back.

When he was silent after that, Jackal assumed he just didn't have anything more to say on the matter. That was a bit of a surprise though, considering Cobra was usually the one harping on him constantly. Always calling him lazy because he didn't work. Getting him into trouble with their father, then laughing when he got hit over the head with that stupid fucking bible. It just didn't make sense for him to have come down at all though, because Jackal knew he didn't care about some human girl.

Hell, Jackal didn't even really care for Lucy. He'd done what he needed to do, to keep her alive, to keep her soul intact.

He didn't realize that it was Cobra who poured shampoo onto Lucy's hair, and Jackal just went through the motions of getting her clean. Once she was finished, he kept her against his chest and cleaned himself as well. The blanket still wrapped around him was annoying as hell, but he didn't try to remove it.

When he turned the water off and stood with Lucy in his arms once again, he turned to find Cobra standing just outside the shower with a golden towel in his hand and another draped over his shoulder.

"Hand her to me," Cobra said. "You can dry yourself off." He chuckled when Jackal hesitated. "I won't do anything to her, asshole. She's got that seal, remember? I can't do a thing."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because we're brothers."

"Since when has that ever made a difference?" Jackal barked. Lucy stirred in his arms, a soft whimper drifting past her barely parted lips. He didn't need a towel to dry himself off, so he just shook out his fur, listening to Cobra shout in indignation as water droplets went flying left and right. Once finished, he shouldered past Cobra and stormed into his bedroom again, then stopped by the bed. Her pants were soaked through and sticking to her, she was soaked from head to toe, and the last thing he wanted was for his bed to get wet.

It would smell like wet dog if that happened. He hated that smell.

"Pneumonia is a thing, even in Hell," Cobra said from behind him, carefully unfolding one towel on the bed. He set the second one next to it while Jackal laid her down. "Dry her off and get her in some warm clothes, or you'll have to deal with the consequences."

"You still haven't told me why you're really here," Jackal muttered. Still, he listened to Cobra's advice and tore through Lucy's pants and underwear. He took the spare towel and started drying her off at her feet, then up the length of her slender legs.

"I heard that Lamy was cleaning up, and you were sent up here to handle it yourself," Cobra said, shrugging. "Bix had to get back to work, and I didn't have anything better to do. Figured I'd come check on you."

"Meaning you wanted to come up here and be a jackass about what I did," Jackal grumbled. He ran the towel over her hips and waist, up to her breasts. She did have some nice tits, he had to admit, but he wasn't some weird pervert so he just moved on as soon as they were mostly dry. Jackal dried her arms, then tossed it to the floor. He'd pick it up later.

"I'm surprised," Cobra said while watching Jackal cross the room to his closet.

"By what?" He picked out a random shirt, then put it back. Again and again. Damnit, why were his shirts so form-fitting? He didn't like it when they were too baggy, but he needed something that would cover Lucy up. And while she was smaller than him, his shirts really wouldn't do the job. And he needed to get some pants on while he was at it.

Without a care over the fact that Cobra was still standing in his room, Jackal finally removed the water-heavy throw blanket he'd taken from Lucy's, and tossed it to the floor. And then he shook again to get the excess moisture off of his fur.

"You've got a naked woman in your bed, and you didn't pop a boner."

Jackal gagged and rounded on his brother. "She's a human!"

"You can look like a human, too," Cobra said with a shrug. "Just like me and everyone else. What, are you into dudes?"

"Fuck no! I'm nothing like you and that freakshow Bickslow!"

Cobra blinked slowly, but Jackal noticed the way his jaw tensed just a little. Ah, he loved hitting that particular nerve. "How many times do we have to tell you-"

"Yeah, I know," Jackal groaned, turning back to his closet. "You're only half-brothers, just like the rest of us. And he's _centuries_ older than you, so it's not like you're fucking your twin or anything. But you're still related."

"And he's the only one in existence who's immune to my poison," Cobra said. That had Jackal going oddly still while he reached for a strange, unfamiliar piece of fabric in the back of the closet. "Yeah, you didn't know that, did you… Did you think I was honestly poisoning you on purpose every time we fought?"

"Well, yeah."

"I wasn't. That's just my scales. They secrete poison constantly, and there's no way to stop it. Bickslow's immune to it, so I can actually touch him without worrying about him getting sick all the time."

Jackal shook his head and grabbed the hanger, pulling the weird article of clothing out to glare at it. He didn't recognize this thing one bit. There was no way in Hell he would have owned anything so… silky. Or sheer. Or white. Still, he pulled it from the hanger and unfolded the fabric, his brows drawing together as it just kept unraveling until he was left looking at what he could only describe as a fucking sheet with golden circular pins in random places.

"What the fuck?" he muttered to himself.

"Damn, I didn't think you were that sentimental," Cobra chuckled, drawing Jackal's narrow over-the-shoulder glare.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"That." Cobra came to lean against the wall beside the open closet door. "It was what your mother wore."

Jackal's frown only deepened. He hadn't a clue what the demoness who'd birthed him looked like. All he knew was that he mostly took after her in appearance, down to his furry legs, tail, and ears. But this was something she'd worn?

"... How?" he wondered aloud. It was a fucking sheet. What were these golden pins even for? Not only that, but why had he never seen this before?

"From what I remember of her, she really liked how the Grecians dressed," Cobra said.

Jackal nodded and carried it back over to the bed, his claws gently trailing across the soft fabric. He wasn't a sentimental fool, and this wasn't something he would've held onto if he'd known it was there. He didn't even second-guess what Cobra had said about knowing his mother. The seventh son of Mard Geer had been alive well before Jackal, so it stood to reason that he would've known who she was.

Everyone knew who she was when she'd been executed. Jackal had been told that his father had made it a pretty public thing.

Finally, he set the fabric down on the bed and looked over to see Lucy was slowly waking up. That was good. It meant she could figure out how to get herself dressed, instead of him doing it.

If only it had been that easy.

Her eyes fluttered open and locked onto his face where he stood just at the edge of the bed. Her brows furrowed in confusion and she blinked repeatedly. Her gaze trailed lower, searing a path over his bare chest and down to his hips. It was when her eyes rounded in horror and she looked down at herself to find that she was equally naked, that she screamed.

"Lucy, wait-"

"Pervert!" she screeched, and before he could do a thing, her foot smashed right into his face and knocked him clear across the room.

Cobra cackled in the background. He laughed so hard that he doubled over and fell to his hands and knees, then started pounding on the floor while Jackal slowly sat up.

"Shut up, Cobra," Jackal growled. His nose twitched and he shook his head to clear the stars from his vision.

"The look on your face!" Cobra howled. By the time Jackal turned another glare toward his brother, he was curled up on the floor, holding his stomach. Still fucking laughing.

"Where are my clothes, Jackal?!" Lucy shrieked. "Why am I wet and naked?! Oh my god, what were you going to do to me?! Or did you-"

Jackal snarled and snapped his fingers, causing a section of the floor just beside Cobra's head to explode. Large chunks of stone went flying through the air, and Lucy screamed once again. "Shut up!" he bellowed. "Both of you!"

"You're an asshole," Cobra sighed. He winced while dislodging a piece of stone from between his ribs, tossing the bloody rubble to the floor.

"Again, why are you even here?!" Jackal froze when he heard Lucy shifting on the bed, the way her breath hitched. Her scent shifted so suddenly that it burned his nostrils. He looked over to see her staring not at him, but at his brother who slowly stood and dusted himself off. She tried to keep herself covered, using his comforter as best as she could to hide her body while inching away from Cobra. He didn't even look at her though. Jackal knew that Cobra and the others didn't really care for humans one way or another. They weren't really all that significant while they were alive. Jackal was of the same belief on that front.

He groaned while standing, then walked back toward the bed. Her wide gaze shifted from Cobra to him and back, as though she couldn't decide who she should be more wary of in that moment. He could smell the fear wafting off of her. He could hear it in her thoughts as they ricocheted between his own ears as well.

With a heavy sigh, he picked up the white fabric that he'd picked out and tossed it at her face. "Put this on," he said. "And be happy I cleaned the blood off of you."

Lucy held it tightly to her chest, but she still looked over at Cobra - who was trying his best to wipe the blood and dust off of his red buttoned shirt.

"For fuck's sake!" Jackal snapped, drawing Lucy's attention and Cobra's. "He's gay! He doesn't care about seeing your tits, Lucy!"

"Whoa, asshole," Cobra snarled. "Totally uncalled for."

"You are gay though," Jackal shot back.

"Not the point. You don't just go screaming that shit at the top of your lungs!"

"Why? You and Bickslow did when you started fucking!"

"That was different. It was the sixties."

Lucy wondered if he meant the _Flower Power_ sixties, and Jackal let out a long breath through his nose. "1760s," he said. "Now, I'm gonna put some damn pants on, because I'm done wearing your blanket. Also, it's ruined with your stupid blood."

Lucy finally looked down and realized that she wasn't bleeding anymore. And she wasn't in pain. Before she could ask any questions, Jackal rolled his eyes and walked toward his bathroom to grab the pants he'd been planning on wearing earlier. Before she'd summoned him fresh out of the shower and ruined his whole existence.


End file.
